I went on a photo walk with my two kids Tyler (8) and Tava (5). The three of us spent some time wandering around Fernwood near the Belfrey Theater snapping pictures. It was a fun process for me but what was most interesting was to see the world through the lens of my children. As creative people we try hard to look at things in new ways and are often inhibited by our past or the way we have learned to see the world. We constantly filter the content in front of our lens through our own experience.

One of the things I enjoy about my watching my kids is their constant discovery of new things, their giggles, and their open hearts. I loved to see all the pictures of telephone poles with paintings on them, man hole covers, fences, and cats. What they found interesting they just pointed the camera at and shot. I looked through my own pictures and noticed that I had focused on people, composition, lines, subject matter. All these things were for the benefit of other people. How would they see my work, how would they perceive my vision, how would they react to my photo. My work was inadvertently being done for someone else.

My kids on the other hand shot what intrigued them, what they liked, what they thought was interesting or noteworthy. They shot what they wanted to capture for themselves. They might have just liked a color or shape. They though the “go canucks go” imprinted in the concrete walk was fun and worth taking a picture of.

They were, photographically, uninhibited by the demands of others and it showed. They have some images I would never have shot but love.

As a business man and photographer I think it is important sometimes to ignore the chatter around us and focus on what we want to accomplish, what we want to create, what we want to do. We can’t be produce something extraordinary if we limit our selves with the confines of ordinary. Many people around you will tell you to give up on an idea or dream, to limit yourself to normal because that’s what people do. The people around you are quick to tell you to conform and slow to encourage your creativity because it’s different.

Bottom line is that if you don’t ignore the world around you and strip yourself of the confines of others, you will never achieve anything extraordinary. I say “Be Extraordinary!”